VirtualJobCoach

Holidays are designed to screw up the job search process in so many ways, let’s take Christmas and New Year’s as two great examples. They fall seven days apart and many people grab the opportunity to take an extended break, thus destroying any chance of reasonable networking or interviewing. In the USA let us add to that the 4^th Thursday in November that marks the Thanksgiving holiday that seems to start earlier and finish later every year. In fact I have heard of an underground movement that wants to stretch out Thanksgiving all the way to January.

We can compound this with the start of school holidays and the seeming deluge of “Out of Office” messages that we receive as we attempt to connect with long lost friends and colleagues. Here are a few ideas that may help mitigate the pain and suffering in these holiday times:

Holiday Times – Just because it is a holiday period it does not mean that everyone is AWOL or gone missing from their desk. What it does mean is that in many cases people are at their desks instead of travelling, and folks are answering their own phones with fewer gate-keepers around. In other words you may actually have a better chance of catching someone by phone during these periods than at other times of the year.

Out of Office Messages – These fall into two categories, telephone and email, both of which are very useful to those of us in the hunt for networking meetings and connections. In both cases we will have an indication that the person we are trying to reach is not available, which is many times better than receiving no response at all. If you receive this message from either medium then make a note as to when they are due to return, and make sure that you are back in touch with them a couple of days after their expected return.

Holiday Events – During the holiday season companies sometimes run family or corporate events that are more social in nature, picnics, barbeques, etc. In the nicest possible way “Take Advantage” and get yourself invited, what a great opportunity to network in a relaxed environment

To sum up – just because other people take a week off, you are job searching and need to focus on finding that next great position. Take time off when you can, but more than a few days or a long weekend means that you are not giving your future the respect it deserves.

Good hunting

Barry